DARTMOUTH — "Why are so many of the institution's most successful faculty all deciding to leave at the same time?"

That's what UMass Dartmouth professor Clyde Barrow asks in a public resignation statement titled "The Book of Exodus" that he submitted to the provost Monday.

After 27 years at the university, the prominent director of the Center for Policy Analysis said he will retire effective July 31, joining "several others" who he alleges have left in recent months having "grown tired of Chancellor Divina Grossman's habitually abusive treatment."

University spokesman John Hoey denied the allegations and said Barrow's statement is riddled with "factual inaccuracies and misleading statements."

"I am known for telling the truth, and my colleagues will back me up," Barrow said.

"He is well known on campus for embellishing criticism of the administration and his fellow faculty members," Hoey said.

Hoey said he is not sure if it is a coincidence that Barrow's angst comes at a time when the administration has been asking "hard questions" about the financials regarding his center and "his relationship to his consultancy firm."

Barrow, whose salary is $185,000, said there have been no questions raised that he knows of. He said he has a signed letter of authorization from the UMass General Counsel's Office "authorizing my consulting activities as not being in conflict with my directorship of the Center for Policy Analysis" and that he has regularly filed quarterly conflict-of-interest statements with the provost's office since 2006 "and no one has ever raised a single question."

"This is exactly the problem. Rather than dealing with issues directly, they turn everything into a personal attack," he said. "These types of unwarranted and malicious attacks on faculty are exactly why people are leaving the campus in such large numbers."

Bal Ram Singh, biochemistry professor and director of the Indic Center at UMass Dartmouth whose multimillion dollar Botulinum Research Center was shut down by the administration, said Barrow's departure will be a loss.

"It's very sad. He's a very prominent scholar and an internationally known figure who has done a lot of important work in this community. I don't think there'll be much left of the Center for Policy Analysis when he leaves," Singh said.

Barrow pointed to several faculty members who he said have "been pushed out" in recent months.

They include former director of the Center for Portuguese Studies and Culture Frank Sousa, who is now at UMass Lowell; Susan Jennings, who quit last fall after her office of sustainability studies was dissolved; former management professor Susanne Scott, who is now associate dean of the School of Business at Brooklyn College, City University of New York; former chair of the Teaching and Learning Department Joao Rosa, who is now at Bridgewater State; and Karen O'Connor, director of the center for University School Community Partnerships, who Barrow said is retiring soon.

Page 2 of 2 - "It is important to mention that no one is leaving UMass Dartmouth because of last year's tragedy," Barrow said in the letter, referring to the Boston Marathon bombings. "Instead, the real underlying problem at UMass Dartmouth continues to be an administrative crisis that is getting worse as senior administrators literally isolate themselves from the campus behind multiple walls of glass, key code security systems, and body guards."

The "most egregious" of Barrow's statement include allegations of a safe house and bulletproof glass for senior administration that Hoey said are not true. However, the university did provide about $7,200 in security upgrades like key card access to the administrative building, that includes the chancellor's office, which is "fairly common," he said.

Cory Lester, director of Center for Rehabilitation Research, who Barrows said in his letter "retired due to a lack of campus support," denied it. He said he retired five years ago because it was time but remains director of the center he founded.

Grant O'Rielly, faculty senate president and physics professor, said people are leaving due to retirement or advancement in their careers. There will be more people retiring in the future due to demographics, he said.

Hoey was unable to immediately provide a number for how many faculty members have left in the past year but said that many of them either retired or moved to better opportunities as is "the nature of the higher education market."

This is not the first time the UMass Dartmouth administration and faculty have butted heads.

Last year, faculty members called for increased dialogue at one of several faculty and student panels organized. Many called the administration "deaf to their concerns" and "several placed the blame on faculty members themselves or called for changes to the university's bureaucratic management structure," according to an article in The Standard-Times on April 30, 2013.